Regrets
by Jenny Y
Summary: Scarlett goes back to Tara after that has Rhett left her, but when she comes back to Atlanta there's a surprise for her...


Scarlett sat sorrowful on the train to Jonesboro and thought back on the last days. She had sober down the morning after that Rhett had left her and remembered that she had to take care of Melanie's funeral before she could go back to Tara. She remembered it as in a mist, how all the crying people had thrown themselves round her neck and Ashley, who had been total helpless. He was completely pathetic now, incapable to do anything. Neither she managed to care about something else than getting home.  
  
Scarlett felt how the strength was coming back the closer she came to Tara and she looked at her two children. Wade and Ella sat quiet and frightened because of their mother's sad expression. She thought of that she hardly knew them and that she would do a new attempt to be a better mother. She smiled and stretched her hand forward to caress Wade on his cheek. He looked uncertain at her and wriggled self-conscious on himself. Wade was not used to that kind of proof of affection from his mother. The only persons that ever showed tenderness against him were aunt Melly and uncle Rhett. Despite that Wade loved his mother very much, now matter how much she complained on him. He remembered the day when Bonnie came and how scared he had been that his mother was going to die.  
  
Again Scarlett got hurt because of the fact that her only boy was afraid of her. Then she had thought that at least Bonnie was fond of her, but Bonnie was dead now.  
  
The train stopped and woke her up from her thoughts with a wrench.  
  
- Prissy, she said. Go out and see if Will has arrived.  
  
Will was supposed to pick them up at the station.  
  
- Come, said Scarlett and took the two children in each hand.  
  
They got surprised because of their mother's behavior, but followed her obediently.  
  
Scarlett looked around after Will and Prissy and saw them walking towards her. She cordially exchanged greetings with Will and was as usual happy to see him.  
  
During the ride home to Tara she kept chattering all the time, asked how it went with the cotton and kept up the appearances so nobody would notice that something was wrong. She felt that she was bound to talk with someone about everything that depressed her and decided to talk with Will about it in the evening. She looked out over the green cotton fields at the same time as she breathed the fresh country air and wondered how she could been away from it for a so long time in Atlanta. It was fervor in her heart when she thought on how good Tara had recovered after the capitulation thanks to Will and her own stubborn work. It was the best farm in the county now even if it ache a bit that Tara was a farm now and not a plantation as in its greatness days.  
  
They drove trough the avenue and she saw the well-known white house stand out. Mammy and Suellen stood on the steps and waited impatient. Scarlett jumped down from the wagon and threw herself in Mammy's arms.  
  
- Miss Scarlett, at last you are home again, said Mammy. We have all heard about Miss Melly and it's so sad. But why is not Mr. Rhett coming with?  
  
- He has gone on one of his business trips, said Scarlett and hoped that she sounded as usual.  
  
Mammy, who had always seen trough her before, didn't notice anything now in the joy over that Scarlett was home again and continued talking about something else.  
  
After the supper Scarlett went out to the porch to talk with Will.  
  
- Will, she said. There are so much that have happened the latest weeks and you are the only one I can talk with that would understand.  
  
- Well, he said in his usual calm way. Let me hear about it.  
  
She had gathered it all inside her so long that it just rushed out from her. Melanie's dead and how she had realized too late that she loved Rhett and not Ashley.  
  
- So, he said. In the end you realized what the rest of us had known all the time, what a good person Miss Melly was.  
  
- Oh, Will, she said hurt. Don't be mean to me now. You know that I was fond of her, you know that!  
  
Will looked at her with his soft look and they were silent for a long while. It was she that broke the silent later by starting to cry. She hadn't cried for a long time. At the funeral she had been bound to control herself to show her strong when everyone else cried. The others always thought that she was strong even if she wasn't.  
  
- I don't know what to do without Rhett, she sobbed. I miss him so much.  
  
That thought kept going round and round in her head till she could start to scream so she repeated her old spell "I shall think of it tomorrow, when I am rested, after all, tomorrow is another day".  
  
The days on Tara passed still and uneventful and as soon as her thoughts started to come back she repeated her spell again. She spent all her time with Wade and Ella and found that they were very nice. Wade wasn't afraid to talk to with her any longer, now he talked a lot with her like she had seen him do with Melanie before. Ella was still as silly as before, but Scarlett took time to play with her and tell stories for her. She learnt to be patient when Ella as before asked things that didn't have with the story to do.  
  
When the day came for her to go back to Atlanta she promised herself that she had to go to Tara more often. She felt much better now than when she first came there and knew that she had to go on with her life, despite everything terrible that had happened. Even if her heart still ached because she missed Rhett she had to move on for her children's sake.  
  
Back in Atlanta she fell in her usual routines again and went to her store every day despite that she didn't want to. She also helped Ashley with the sawmills and didn't want to think of how he would have managed it all without her help. Not because it went very well with the sawmills now, he had his pride and she didn't want to hurt him by helping him too much. She was completely occupied the whole days now with the store, the children and with helping Ashley. That made that she didn't needed to think, which she was grateful for.  
  
One day Scarlett came home extra late because the bookkeeping had been in a mess. She was so tired that she just wanted to go to bed. Strange, she thought when she came in trough the door, that it is light in the kitchen. She went over there to see why and hardly believed her eyes, Rhett stood in there!  
  
- Rhe. Rhett, she stammered happily surprised. What are you doing here?  
  
- There are still things that are unexplained, he said and smiled. You see I didn't leave you forever that night. I just wanted to give you time to think through all that you figured out orderly. At the same time I wanted you to feel what I felt all the years when you ran after Ashley.  
  
- Oh, she said and blushed. I hope that you can forgive me for being such a stupid goose all those years when I thought that I loved Ashley. You know that it's you I love now.  
  
- Of course I can, he said. How about forgetting about the past and start all over again?  
  
- Yes, of course, she said and smiled. She thought of everything that they had to endure trough the years just so she would understand that she loved him, and was glad that they hadn't broken down by it. Instead they had come out of it all with a stronger faith in their love, and now when all this laid behind them they probably would be very happy.  
  
A/N This is my first fanfic about GWTW. Please review and let me know if you liked it or not. 


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